Applying high power to an internal heater or heaters of the printer can warm fusers and other elements of printer fairly rapidly. However, such application of power in an ordinary business or office setting may divert power from related systems and cause flicker of lights powered by such systems. Flicker is undesirable as it is distracting and the drain of power evidenced by flicker may interfere with the operation of other apparatus. At least one state in Europe has requirements directed to flicker.
Flicker can be avoided with special apparatus or systems such as coils installed as chokes and surge control circuits. These add expense to the printer and limit initial power to the heater. This invention requires only a control system, which may be only software used with pre-existing elements. This invention delays printing for heavy or thick media, while the use of chokes or surge control delays power to the heater. Delay of power to the heater inherently delays printing since printing is not initiated until the appropriate temperature is reached.
The adding of delays for a printer to reach certain temperatures before launching a sheet to be printed is prior and established in the printer art. This is done in known embodiments by storing a table of the time period to delay or a table of the offset from an operating temperature value normally sensed for. These delays are specific to heavy or thick media in contrast to normal media. The prior art, however, is not known to add to such delays at cold start nor to combine the added delay with a lower power supply to avoid flicker.